America has decided who to blame for everything that went wrong in Iraq: a handful of ex-chicken-processors from West Virginia who just tried to have a little fun with the Iraqi detainees in their custody. Yup, the whole debacle is the fault of a few prison guards like Lynndie England, better known as "the girl with the leash."

Well, the eXile's not going to stand for it. We're here to say it loud and proud: playing with conquered peoples is the whole point of an having empire!

In other words... Lynndie and her comrades shown in those pictures from Al-Ghraib sitting atop a mound of naked prisoners or leading a hooded captive on a leash are the only ones doing it right!

Good for you, Lynndie England, you chinless, inbred, runty, androgynous backwoods mutt! When you mimed a crotch-shot at that hooded detainee, you reminded us all of what Imperial service should be like: one long S&M tour of the tropics, where every man, woman and child of the conquered peoples exists solely as an object for your pleasure.

The Greeks and Romans were honest about conquest. They divided the task into two parts: first you vanquish the enemy on the battlefield, and then you rape every single man, woman and child among the conquered. They were just as systematic about this phase of the operation as the campaign that preceded it. The troops may have been weary, but somehow they found the devotion to duty to impress their tribal superiority on their defeated enemies in the most direct, practical sense: by fucking them in the ass.

Among the nations conquered and buggered by Roman civilization was Britain. They, too, knew in their colons exactly what it was to be colonized. As the inhabitants were being rogered, they learned a valuable lesson, which they passed on to their distant descendents, the founders of the British Empire: being the soldier of a victorious empire means having a free pass to a giant rape-camp thousands of miles across, crammed with submissive, trembling victims of every age and shape. And every damn one of them is yours, to do with as you please.

When the British conquered the world in their turn, they took full advantage of their raping rights. After all, that was the point of the English elite curriculum, which consisted of nothing but translation of Greek and Roman accounts of conquest and pillage. Best of all, these accounts were in secret code--languages taught only at the elite schools which bred new generations of imperial rapists.

And there's the rub: by hiding their sodomitic delights behind a pose of grim duty, the Brits introduced hypocrisy to the business of conquest.

As Gibbon had warned, centuries of Christianity made conquerors shy about admitting the joy of rape. So, for the gullible masses, the Victorian Empire hired shills like Kipling to spread nonsense about "the white man's burden." Everyone who mattered knew the point of seizing the hot countries was to allow sexually-starved English youths, tired of being buggered by their tutors, the chance to flip roles from catcher to pitcher. But they peddled another version to the suckers back home -- the ones too timid to join the orgy in the Colonies: it was all about the Bible, and civilization, and high collars -- in other words, any nonsense at all -- rather than the simple joy of riding natives like horses, then buggering your two-legged steed when you return to the stable.

When Britain's Empire faded away, America stepped into its place like a shy Methodist deacon at the sack of Babylon. Instead of joining in, all we could think of doing was making sure that nobody in our empire was going to have any fun.

In the good old days, commanders permitted their troops three days of unlimited rape and pillage when they finally took a besieged city. But when we "liberated" someplace, the reward was supposed to be a few flowers flung by the locals, and a handshake or two if you were lucky. If there was going to be any closer contact, it had to end in marriage, with the imported bride quickly reduced to "partner" in the dull business of trudging the middle-class squirrel wheel until death.

Save The eXile: The War Nerd Calls Mayday EditorialThe future of The eXile is in your hands! We're holding a fundraiser to save the paper, and your soul. Tune in to Gary Brecher's urgent request for reinforcements and donate as much as you can. If you don't, we'll be overrun and wiped off the face of the earth, forever.

Scanning Moscow’s Traffic CopsAutomotive SectionWe’re happy to introduce a new column in which we publish Moscow’s raw radio communications, courtesy of a Russian amateur radio enthusiast. This issue, eXile readers are given a peek into the secret conversations of Moscow’s traffic police, the notorious "GAIshniki."

Eleven Years of Threats: The eXile's Incredible JourneyFeature Story By The eXileGood Night, and Bad Luck: In a nation terrorized by its own government, one newspaper dared to fart in its face. Get out your hankies, cuz we’re taking a look back at the impossible crises we overcame.

Your Letters[SIC!]Russia's freedom-loving free market martyr Mikhail Khodorkovsky answers some of this week's letters, and he's got nothing but praise for President Medvedev.

Clubbing Adventures Through TimeClub Review By Dmitriy BabooshkaeXile club reviewer Babooshka takes a trip through time with the ghost of Moscow clubbing past, present and future, and true to form, gets laid in the process.

The Fortnight SpinBardak Calendar By Jared LindquistJared comes out with yet another roundup of upcoming bardak sessions.

Your Letters[SIC!]Richard Gere tackles this week's letters. Now reformed, he fights for gerbil rights all around the world.

13 Toxic Talents: Hollywood’s Worst PollutersAmerica By Eileen JonesEverybody complains about celebrities, but nobody does anything about them. People, it’s time to stop fretting about whether we’re a celebrity-obsessed culture—we are, we have been, we’re going to be—and instead take practical steps to clean up the celebrity-obsessed culture we’ve got...